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Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

It’s become apparent over the last few months that Tom is just a little too good at his job. His position is a unique one ^[1], and apparently it was not until he made it clear just how valuable it was that other offices around the country realized they needed a Tom. And heck, why train a Tom when you can just offer Tom v.1.0 a job in Reno, Miami, Houston, Chicago, D.C.?

Don’t panic local friends, we are not going anywhere. Every time a new offer comes in, we look at each other and ask “Is it enough? Would it be worth it? Will the gains be worth the losses?” and every time the answer is “No”. Resoundingly, ridiculously, “No”. There are a lot of great reasons to stay in the area – Tom’s family, our home^[2], the cost of living, etc – but for me, it comes down to the fact that I am blessed here with friends who will not only rally around me when I am in crisis, but who are also ready to happy dance with me when I have good news. I moved too much as a kid to really understand what friendship was^[3] until I grew up and put down roots, so to have this little community of people who support me, and lets me support them, is quite literally invaluable.

So, since Tom refuses to transfer across the country, they have decided that he will need to come to headquarters for a minimum of six weeks after the new year, during which he will get paid to sleep in a hotel room, watch cable TV, and eat out for all of his meals. I, on the other hand, will be at home with a two year old and a four year old, six months pregnant, in the winter. And the one thing that is keeping me from panicking and demanding Tom quite his job and go back to waitering is that I know I will not starve, because Meghan is a damn good cook. And Sarah lives around the corner, and will not let me abandon my children. Gretchen’s house always smells like tea, and her laugh is contagious. Chelsea is someone whose hugs can change my entire day. They will not let me drown.

I am rich, rich, rich.^[4]

1 It’s not kosher to actually say what he does. it’s not a big secret or anything, but blogging publicly about it wouldn’t be smart.

2 Hopefully news on this soon, though I am not going to jinx myself yet. We just may be moving before the new year…

3This isn’t to say that I haven’t had wonderful friendships, just that I never really understood how to be a good friend, or how to maintain a friendship for longer than a year. I’ve let wonderful people fall through the cracks, and the few friendships I have had long term were almost all because they didn’t give up on me.

4Like pumpkin cheesecake. Also, footnotes are annoying, but I am way too stuffed full of leftover turkey to make this cohesive. Gobble gobble.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Click over to flickr to see our “Day in the Life” for November 17th, 2009 , almost exactly a year after this DITL, and two years after this one. And just in case that is not enough self indulgence for you, here is the semi-complete list of previous DITL’s, some with witty commentary, and some woefully neglected. Woe!

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

(Found on the edge of a piece of Ella’s drawing paper. )

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Pregnancy update: 19 weeks and a couple days.

Pollywog is using my sciatica nerve as a jump rope lately, so even though the nausea has abated a bit (I’m down to throwing up twice a day!), now I am hobbling around like my leg is going to fall out of the socket. My stretch marks are getting stretch marks, my skin is breaking out, I can’t sleep, and my glasses are giving me migraines. Right about now is when I start to wonder if three pregnancies in four years was such a great idea.

The girls, though, have no doubt that all the cranky mama days are worth it, because they are getting a “baby sister!” out of the deal. Alice demands to cuddle the belly any time I am sitting down, to the point of hysterics when I stand up. She was the first to feel Pollywog from the outside, and sat up, looked at the spot accusingly, and then poked her back.

Ella made up a “We can’t wait to meet you, but you need to Grow Grow Grow!” song that she likes to sing into my belly button while we are in the bath. She suggest no less than 15 names for her daily, “What about…. Booble?” “I know! We can call the baby Quazi!”  ”Do we know anyone named Mooshu?” I am also constantly finding new drawings of our family, baby included.

So, I ache, I limp, I fall asleep at dinner.  I would give so much more.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

I really thought that this year, the line between Halloween and Thanksgiving would be a smooth one, and that pesky day in the middle, November 15th, could pass like every other day.

I was wrong.

Not a lot of words today. I am feeling quiet, and am just looking forward to tomorrow. But because I wanted to mark the day somehow, I dug through boxes to find this old recording of my mom reading Owly to us. It was our favorite book as kids, and hearing her read it makes everything feel a little easier.

I’ve been writing in my paper journal this week, and may hide over there for a bit longer. NaBloPoMo is a bust for me, but I’ll be back, soon.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Things I say 30+ times a day:

Your sister does not want to be touched right now.
Who was in my purse?
No, we can not call Daddy again .
You can help mommy if you do not touch.. that. Okay, everyone down.
There are 306,736 toys in this house, you do not both need that lizard.
Throwing a fit does not get us what we want.
I can not hear a whiny voice.
Who took my phone?
Put your shoes in the closet.
If you throw that one more time, you are going.. Alright! In your room!
Ella, please speak English.
We only draw on paper.
We just had a snack.
Be gentle with the cat.
What do we say to people who hit?
If you had put your shoes away, we could find them right now.
We love each other more than we love this lizard. I’m putting him away until you can be loving towards each other.
No, you can not see the belly right now, Alice.
Is that what really happened, or what you wish happened?
I can not understand you if you do not stop screaming.
A minute is 60 seconds.
Daddy’s at work.
Please eat.
I am not your Kleenex.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Recently it has moved past the ”pretty leaves and light sweaters” portion of Fall, into the “Oh god, is that blue sky I see over there? I forgot the sky could be anything other than grey” portion. This will last for oh… another 5 months or so, with the occasional reminder that we live way to fracking far north.

If it were just me, I would gladly swear off all fresh air until Spring, and spend the next 5 months inside watching reruns of Golden Girls. But it’s a funny thing about the under 12 set – they have more energy than is humanly possible, and if they do not get it out, their mother’s heads have been known to expode. So, we’re not letting a little rain and 20mph winds stop us from enjoying a day at the park this year. Okay, enjoying it may be a stretch, but they didn’t have an option, I locked the car.

(Ella was stuck on the slide here, because the slide was wet and stuck to her jeans. And like an awesome mom, I took a picture from under the safety of the weather shelter before saving her.)

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

I just wrote up a long blog post about how maddening I am finding disciplining a preschooler to be, when Ella came out of her room, gave me a hug, and told me “I’m sorry I did not listen very well today. I will try harder tomorrow.” Me too, kiddo. Me too.

But hey, look, it’s a cute toddler in a hat!

And if that didn’t work to cheer you up, Alice will gladly come over and tickle you.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Today is the kind of day that, if it were not NaBloPoMo*, I would just take off from blogging. Today has been full – of activity, of emotion, of cooking and laughing and crafting – and sitting down to condense any of it seems like time that could be spent elsewhere, but alas, it is November.

So, here is a little collage of inspiration for the girls’ room. Moving may be months away, but I can dream, right?

*NaBloPoMo 2007 begins here, and NaBloPoMo 2008 here.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Five years ago today, Tom and went on our first date. I plan to write out “our story” eventually, but for now, know this: it’s been a whirlwind half decade. If you had told me then that today we would be celebrating not only surviving five years together, but also that we have three beautiful daughters, I would not have believed you.

I’m so glad I said yes to that date.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

A Vagabond Song
-Bliss Carman

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood –
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Things are still happening over at the little house, though as the weather shifts and the bank account gets lower, the projects are shifting as well. The most recent major accomplishment is that we have replaced every window in the house with high efficiency vinyl windows, including adding two egress windows downstairs. The Little House is now officially a four bedroom house.

We’ve replaced all the exterior doors as well, and added insulation to a few of the exterior walls (which were empty before). Once they finish installing the new recessed lighting upstairs, they will also blow new insulation into the attic. All of these changes have already made a huge difference in the draftiness of the house, and I am excited to see our next heating bill. (Well, as excited as a person can be about heating a house they do not live in.)

(Awesome Photoshop stitching skills: negative)

Both bathrooms are gutted, and one of the next big projects will be moving plumbing, tearing down walls, and putting these rooms back together. The upstairs bathroom will not change a lot, other than a few feet more of wiggle room, and the fact that the walls/floors will not squish when you touch them. The downstairs “bathroom” is actually going in where a storage closet was before, but with some creative wall shifting, this bathroom will actually be larger than the upstairs bathroom.

In the ’short term’, there is still a wall to tear down in the living room, kitchen cabinets/countertops/appliances to install, and all the framing and drywalling to be done downstairs. But, we are trying to be realistic. Tom is going to be traveling off and on for the next few months, birthdays and holidays are imminent,  the weather is going to put off a few projects we had hoped to have done before the snow hits (like new siding), and we have spent the majority of the extra money we had set aside.

We have plenty of supplies to take on the short term projects right now, but unless the Big House sells soon (Haaaaaaaaa. Ha.), we are planning on spending the winter here. I’m trying not to be disappointed - I know how blessed we were to receive surprise money and be able to start the renovations, and I know Tom and Mike have worn themselves out spending every evening and weekend over there – but I am still a bit sad that the big move is put off until spring. Whether we are ready or not, we have other big changes coming in spring, and knowing that I will not be able to build my nest is hard to swallow.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

An adorable video from Argentina, where children explain birth.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I am a bit of a birth nut, and that, when we were preparing for Alice’s birth, Ella watched a lot of birth videos with me. Even as little as she was, she would walk around the house with a bunny in her shirt, and then make her “baby wolf” noise (ow, ow, ow owwwwwww!), grunt a little, and the baby would fall out of her shirt. She thought it was hilarious, and would demonstrate to anyone who would watch, including other kids at the library. It stuns me sometimes that she was not even two then.. just at Alice’s age now. We planned to have her at the birth, but after 10 hours of stop and go contractions, I realized that the only thing holding me back was my fear that she would be scared. She left to Pam’s at 10pm, and I immediately went into transition, and had her sister at 11:38. And I roared that baby out.

Alice is still pretty unaware of birth, though she is obsessed with my belly. She begs to see it constantly, and if I dare get up and walk away, she runs after me, screaming “BELLLYYYY!!!” until I either show it to her again, or distract her with candy. Ella still understand he mechanics of birth, but is more interested in what baby’s world is like now (hence this drawing). She also recently asked “So, I know how the baby will get out of your belly… but how did it get IN there?” Which, uh, is a post for another day.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Ya know, after three years of knitting, you’d figure I would bother to make a gauge swatch every now and then. You would be incorrect.

Sorry Alice, I don’t think this hat is going to fit you.

(Details: LTK Pilot Cap, my trusty size 7 needles and a random worsted weight 100% wool yarn I had in a drawer. )

-

And because I was already in the bathroom with my camera, behold, the belly of ridiculous proportions:

Our ultrasound was rescheduled, and the only time we could get in before Tom leaves to Chicago in a few weeks, was this coming Friday (when I will be almost 18 weeks). So, t-minus 4 days until we find out just exactly what is going on in there.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

We went trick or treating last night with our gang of dastardly … kitties, princesses, delivery witches, butterflies and kissy monsters. Boo!

I finally finished Alice’s butterfly wings the day before halloween, and Ella insisted that hers still needed more sparkle. After carefully considering just how much whining I could handle, I let her have the glitter glue and told her to not make a mess. She did a great job, and the places where the glue was uneven or smudged were easy to fix.

I intend to write up something about appliquéing satin to satin, since I could find nothing out there about it when I searched, but not today. Today Tom is finishing installing the second egress window in the little house, officially making it a four bedroom house, rather than a two.  It will still likely be a few months before we move over (holidays, travel, money and LIFE are getting in the way) but this feels like a reason to celebrate. Four lbs of Halloween candy, anyone?

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Fall leaves

Swings

Relaxing on the couch

Washable markers

Being 16 weeks pregnant, and finally, finally feeling human again.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

In a due date community I regularly post to, someone asked if we all wanted to make predictions about the circumstances of our baby’s birth. Tom and I were on the same page during Alice’s pregnancy, but this time one of us will be wrong.

My predictions:
Gender: Male
Birthdate: 4/11/10 (EDD is 4/7)
Time of birth: 7pm
Length of Labor: 8 hours
Weight: 8lbs 2 oz
Length: 21inches

Tom’s predictions:
Two boys
March 27th
4:17pm
4hrs
7lbs 4oz
19inches

Ella’s predictions:
A boy and a girl!
April 3rd, in the afternoon, “after we have lunch”
(Me: “How long will mommy be in labor?” Ella: “61 minutes. Or hours.”)
(Me: “How big will baby be?” Ella: holds her arms like she is rocking a baby “This big”.)

Alice’s predictions:
Baby! Baby? Belly! Baby! Ninny. Belly.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

Gather your small children and precious belongings, and head for the hills, because the belly of doom is on course to rampage Tokyo!

Alas, it has taken down it’s first victim!

-

15 weeks over here, and feeling upbeat about the fact that I am still functioning, despite throwing up multiple times every.single.day.of.my.life. Some day are better than others, but most are still well within the range of miserable. I’ll spare you the details, but know this: I weigh less right now, with that belly, than I have since I got pregnant with Alice. Shall I remind you of how ridiculously skinny I was then? (Look at those arms! Gah.)

Guys, that was me at 15 weeks with Alice. Oh god. Maybe it IS Godzilla I am giving birth to in a few short months.

Looking at those pictures, I am 97% sure it is a giant, scaly lizard who is having a dance party in my uterus*, not a tiny 4 inch baby. As such, I have an ultrasound scheduled for November 10th, to double check that there is only one monster in there, instead of 45. We are also playing with the idea of finding out the gender of said monster (will it be a Japanese Godzilla or an American one?)  but we have not decided yet. It has surprised a lot of people that we decided on an ultrasound this time, since we were 100% comfortable not having one with Alice, but joking about monsters aside, there is something that is nagging both Tom and I about not getting one this time, so we are following our intuition. I don’t feel like I am choosing one out of fear, or that I do not know the benefits of not having one, but for birth to be as simple as it can be, I need to leave all the baggage at the door, and I’m not sure I could if I do not trust my gut right now. And my gut is saying it’s time for STEAK. But then time to throw up a steak. And then it wants CHIPS.

*I started feeling baby at 14 weeks, which is early, but not so strange for a third pregnancy.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been avoiding writing a little house update, since all I can seem to do is complain about it. It’s ridiculous, because the reason I am complaining about it at all, is because we have the (surprise!) money to renovate it right now. The plan, before we had the means to renovate, was to be moved to the little house at the beginning of October, and just live there and renovate as we could. But, here it is October 8th, and I am realizing that we will be lucky to be over there before it snows. There is just still so much to be done, and as much as I want to be out of here, I know it would suck to live over there in a construction zone. This week they finished the electrical work (which had not been updated since 1950) and next week the new windows are being delivered. After that is plumbing (minor changes upstairs, but a new bathroom downstairs), outfitting and tiling the bathrooms, framing walls, knocking down other walls, drywalling, carpeting, painting, insulating the roof, tearing down the kitchen cabinets and replacing them, and about a million other small things.

Tom and his step-dad Mike are doing the vast majority of the work themselves, so between Tom working 50 hours a week at his job, and Mike running his own business, they are getting in 3 or 4 hours an afternoon, and as much of the weekend as they can squeeze in. Between their schedules,  waiting on permits/inspectors, and the fact that this house is full of surprises and quirks, it’s sinking in that this is going to take a while.

So essentially: I am whining that we received money in the mail to renovate our house, and that we are doing it. Boohoo, poor me, right? Don’t worry, I want to stomp on my own foot and say “Now you have something to cry about, sucker!” as well.

Having Tom gone constantly has taken a toll on me though,  since I am still struggling through “morning sickness” (which sounds so demure and tame, but is not).  I’ve felt stuck between a rock (puking 15 times a day, and needing Tom’s help) and a hard place (knowing that he was exhausted because he is working so hard for us) and have tried to keep my grumblings to a minimum. Once the girls started begging him not to go though, he caught on, and set us up a “living room” in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Now at least we can bring by dinner and share it with him.

So, little house update: It’s finally safe to turn on a light, but no one is home.

Originally published at The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness. Please leave any comments there.

In the last few days, I have had the distinct feeling that the universe needs me to wake up and pay attention to the simple blessings of my life, namely that I have the luxury of complaining. I’ve been doing it a lot lately, and it’s easy to forget that there are so, so many more reasons to be thankful. If I let everything in my life carry the same weight and value, I would be buried under the blessings, but instead I shrug them off, and choose to embrace and give weight to the few, trivial complaints I have. But through friends, books, and chance encounters with strangers, the universe is shaking me by the shoulders, telling me to wake up. It’s a Monday in fall, my favorite season, and I am inspired to make today matter, if only because it is so full of opportunities for joy.

~~~

Ps: Happy birthday Luke,  and Elijah. Love you big.